


Rain, Rain

by eyes_like_a_miracle



Category: Soulbound - Fate's Hand (Web Series)
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Curses, Missing Scene, Muteness, ah there it is, anyway hi im back on my bullshit again! this time with Rain because i love her, can you believe that this fic has more dialogue than my other one, i will be this entire fandom if i have to i swear i will, i'll add character tags as necessary - Freeform, i'm literally just going to write all of Rain's scenes from her perspective, im not sure if there's a tag for 'scene from someone else's perspective', sort... of???, there will be multiple chapters im just impatient and wanted to post this one, yeah it's just That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28002462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyes_like_a_miracle/pseuds/eyes_like_a_miracle
Summary: I love Rain and I write nothing but character studies and introspection and this is the product of that
Kudos: 6





	Rain, Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Uhh spoilers for episode 12, I guess? If you're reading this I'm really hoping you've watched past episode 12 already though lmao

The Soul Keepers weren’t big on many rules, but at the very least they respected that libraries were meant to be quiet places. Well, most of them did, anyway; Leo could get a little rowdy but he was like that everywhere so Rain didn’t think he did it on purpose. They also respected that, at least during the day, they shouldn’t bring any sort of fire into the library. Even putting aside the fact that they lived in a giant tree, a lot of the books in the library were incredibly old and, as a result, incredibly _flammable,_ so it was sort of an unspoken rule that fire wasn’t allowed in the library unless absolutely necessary. That was part of why the windows were so big – during the day, even if it was storming outside, they let in enough light to render firelight irrelevant. It was for this reason that the flicker of candlelight out of the corner of her eye at barely noon caught Rain’s attention as quickly as it did. She looked up from the book she’d been repairing, ready to fix whatever idiot had walked into the library with fire with her most withering glare even as ineffective as it usually was, then blinked when she realized that it was just someone’s hair. That made more sense, Rain though’ this must be one of the new members Terris had mentioned a couple days ago. Rain assumed he was new, anyway. For one thing, Rain had never seen this particular man before, and if anyone who wasn’t a guild member was in the tree then something either really weird or borderline catastrophic was going on. She thought she remembered Terris saying that one of the newbies was a fire genasi, which would explain why his hair was glowing like that. Plus, he was staring around at the walls with the mildly overwhelmed, awed expression that everyone had when they walked into the library for the first time. Rain smiled over at him in greeting; it was always nice to see people stop and appreciate the grandiosity of the books for a moment. She just hoped this guy’s hair only _looked_ like fire; she didn’t think she’d be able to like him much if he turned any of the books into kindling, even if it was only by accident. Rain went back to her book, careful with her Mending spell as she ran it along the binding. This had been something Bennet had taught her so she didn’t think it would explode in her face, but Rain could never be sure how much of his magical knowledge came from his husband, so she made it a habit of being extra cautious with any magic she didn’t learn directly from a book just in case.

Quiet footsteps approaching the desk made Rain look up. The fire genasi – Rain decided to call him Candlestick until she learned his actual name, since if Terris had said it she’d forgotten it – was standing in front of the desk. She couldn’t tell if he looked vaguely awkward and out of place because he was bad with people or because her reputation had preceded her and he wasn’t sure how to communicate with her. She hoped it was the former. Just because she couldn’t talk didn’t mean she couldn’t hear it when people talked at her or about her like she wasn’t there. Still, she offered him a smile as she set the book down on the desk and waited patiently for him to speak. She couldn’t help him if he didn’t tell her what he needed. Rain was a lot of things, but telepathic was not one of them.

“Hello. Um, I was hoping you could help me find something?”

Well, that much she could certainly do. She nodded, then tilted her head a bit to one side. It was such a nonspecific gesture; Rain just hoped he’d understand the question she was trying to ask. That was the singular most inconvenient thing about this curse of hers, as far as Rain was concerned: she had to rely so heavily on other people to be able to properly read body language if she wanted to communicate with them at all. At least she’d gotten lucky with the guild members in that regard; they all seemed to understand her well enough, and thankfully Candlestick didn’t seem to be the exception.

Rain saw the exact moment Candlestick noticed the scars. His eyes caught on the ones on her face, then darted down to her hands, then understanding sparked in his eyes and he raised an eyebrow at her. Rain’s heart sank into her stomach and started to flop frantically like a fish dropped onto the bottom of a boat. There was never any way to predict how people would react to her curse, and Rain had never really learned how to handle the anxiety that came with waiting to find out.

“You can’t speak, can you?”

Well, at least he’d caught on fast. Rain looked away, not quite able to find it in herself to maintain eye contact, and shook her head.

“Well. I like you.”

Rain glanced back up and found Candlestick grinning lopsidedly at her. She couldn’t help but laugh a bit, even if it wasn’t audible, and found herself fleetingly glad that the curse didn’t make it hurt to do so. It was incredibly painful to try to write or speak, almost as much as being cursed in the first place had been, but at least they had let her laugh. It was a small mercy.

Candlestick laughed along with her, then glanced back toward the books. Oh, right, he’d needed help with something. “So I realize this is extremely vague, but, um, I need to find info on any sort of, like, desert areas that are… _relatively_ near here?”

Well that was an interesting question. Being that they were currently and always in the middle of the ocean, it wasn’t often that people came in asking about deserts. Rain tapped a finger against her cheek as she considered Candlestick’s question; he hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that it was a vague one. This must’ve been why Terris had come to talk to her earlier, she realized, though he had also been very scattered and nonspecific so details had been practically nonexistent. Well, the geography would probably have something, and even if it didn’t maybe it would help Candlestick find at least a place to start with his research. Rain stepped out from behind the desk and waved for Candlestick to follow as she made her way through the shelves and scattered tables toward the back corner where they kept the maps. She didn’t spend much time back here – she preferred to lose herself in literature – but hopefully she knew enough to help at least a little bit. It took her a moment to find it, but luckily the sections had been labeled long before Rain had become the librarian, so it was only a couple of seconds before she was able to point Candlestick to the shelves labeled ‘Deserts.’

“Ah,” he said, sounding surprised. Had he thought that there weren’t going to be _any_ books in this entire, massive library that would be able to help him? “Well, this should do it then.”

He nodded his thanks at Rain and then turned to the bookshelves. It was almost funny; he already looked halfway to lose in the face of so many books. Rain smiled and waved her goodbye, started to head back to the desk, then paused. He would be there for weeks if he tried to read all those books… maybe it would be better if she gave him a few suggestions, just so he didn’t try to scour through the encyclopedias on different types of desert sand in hopes of finding useful information that didn’t exist there. Yeah, absolutely not. Candlestick seemed nice; Rain didn’t want to risk subjecting him to that. She turned back to the shelves and pulled an elevation map and a topographical map of the nearest continent, as well as a book each on desert cities, desert weather, and potential threats desert travel could pose beyond territorial sand-dwelling creatures, from the shelves. It didn’t hurt to be extra prepared.

Candlestick glanced at the books as Rain set them on the table, then up at her, and slid the book he’d been looking at back onto the shelf. “Oh, uh, thank you.”

Rain glanced around, trying to remember if there were any other books here that might be particularly important, and caught sight of Terris walking into the library. _Ugh._ If he had coffee with him, Rain swore that she would kick him out. She was tired of having to get modified stain removal potions from Chenkar just to get coffee stains out of book covers. It was always worse with paperbacks, too; sometimes the coffee would bleed through the covers and onto the two or three pages behind it, and it was always such a pain to try to get a stain out of the paper without messing up any of the text. She had spent four hours just last week trying to get coffee out of a book that was almost as old as the Shaman; she was _not_ going to let him threaten another book so soon.

Luckily, if he was after a book, he forgot about it almost immediately when he saw Candlestick and jogged over to them. “Hello, Flint,” Terris said brightly as he came up beside Rain. “Um, right at it, huh? You just met our librarian Rain – that is her name, by the way. Rain, our lovely librarian.”

Rain waved awkwardly at Candlestick – Flint, she corrected herself; she should actually use his name now that she knew it – and tried not to wonder how someone as scattered as Terris had ended up with so much power in the guild. Flint, looking as awkward as Rain felt, glanced briefly at her before nodding at Terris

“Unfortunately,” Terris continued, seeming completely oblivious to the awkward tension he’d brought with him, “she’s, uh, unable to speak, write, or do anything in any way to communicate, so I, uh – that’s kind of unfortunate; sorry about any communication issues there. But, uh, as for what she’s helping you with, I did tell her that you were coming by and, uh, kinda told her the general description you gave me, so hopefully the books she pointed out to you should be helpful.”

It took every ounce of Rain’s self control not to roll her eyes at Terris’ back. He was kind and he really did mean well, but he had a bad habit of being unintentionally condescending. She _could_ communicate, just not in the same succinct way everyone else could. She wasn’t a child, she was just cursed. Terris tended to forget that, much to Rain’s endless annoyance. To make herself feel better, she moved one of her hands along to Terris’ words like she was controlling a puppet’s mouth. It was a bit petty and childish, she knew, but it made her smile instead of smacking Terris, so she didn’t really care. Flint caught sight of it and laughed, too, though he hid it with a hand over his mouth. Feeling her own smile widen, Rain put a little more energy into her hand puppet. She figured she might as well put a bit of extra effort into making fun of Terris if it served a purpose other than maintaining her own sanity.

Flint cleared his throat and lowered his hand, though he was still smiling just a little. “Well, it seems like we’re communicating just fine, actually, despite, uh… what you said. But yeah, she’s been very helpful.”

“Oh, of- of course,” Terris said. Rain grinned at Flint and animated her gestures a little bit more. When Terris turned to look at her, she hid her hands quickly behind her back and offered him the biggest, most innocent smile she could muster.

Terris glanced between the two of them and then awkwardly excused himself, seeming confused. Flint rolled his eyes at Terris’ back, a gesture that Rain immediately copied with no small amount of joy and exaggeration. That settled it, Rain decided; Flint was _definitely_ one of her favourite guild members. She returned his smile and headed back to the desk, still laughing to herself. They’d even managed to get Terris out of the library without a single book getting stained with coffee, which Rain _definitely_ considered a win. Today was a good day, Rain decided as she sat back down behind her desk. Even Flint almost walking out of the library without checking out the map he wanted to take didn’t put a damper on Rain’s good mood. For once, everything felt like it really would be okay like everyone kept telling her it would.


End file.
